Last few days on land ...

Back in New Zealand. As little as I like Auckland it's nice to be back – it kind of feels right.

Had a lovely Easter weekend in Sydney however. On Saturday, shortly after I arrived from Katoomba, my friend Jess and some of her friends and I all went off to Cockatoo Island for the night. Cockatoo Island is pretty much in the middle of Sydney harbour, not far from land. When the Europeans first arrived it was used as a prison for convicts transported from Norfolk Island; later it became a reformatory school; and then a shipyard until the 1990s. In 1992 they closed the shipyard down and it's been empty until recently. A couple of years ago they reopened the island to the public and you can get a ferry there during the day. At night you can camp – they have tent sites as well as quite a lot of permanent tents, and there are barbeques for cooking. We got a couple of the permanent tents and pitched two ordinary ones and had a very pleasant evening, first exploring the island a bit and then just hanging out, chatting and playing cards. Slept okay apart from being woken by the rain in the night and the kids doing an Easter Egg hunt at about 6.30am (there were a number of families there. Annoyingly the kids all stole the little chocolate eggs thoughtfully placed outside each tent by the campsite managers – but one of Jess's friends very kindly gave us all Easter bunnies, so there was chocolate after all.)

In the afternoon, after we'd packed up and left the island, we did a walk along the coastline from the Spit Bridge to Manly. It's a good walk, about 10km but not generally difficult, with pretty views back towards the city and even some Aboriginal petroglyphs along the way. There were also some decent-sized lizards, pelicans and lorikeets to be seen. Australia does have interesting wildlife!

Yesterday morning, after dropping people off at the airport and the railway station, Jess and I went to the Royal Easter Show. Sydney has found a good use for its Olympic park, hosting shows there a lot according to Jess, and the whole central chunk of it was taken up with the show. We spent quite a bit of time in the food hall sampling things, but also watched a couple of heats of single-handed sawing in the woodchop arena (seriously – they race to see who's the fastest at sawing through a log) and managed to catch glimpses of the pig racing. We wandered around the smelly enclosures for the alpacas, llamas, cows, horses, sheep and pigs as well as the flower show where there were an enormous number of amazing dahlias on display. We finished up at the food hall again for a lunch of more samples! On the way back to Jess's we had a swim in her local outdoor 50m saltwater pool – it's a lovely pool apart from the salt, which I'm not a huge fan of really. Then the airport, and the flight back to Auckland, arriving at midnight as the Aussie flights tend to.

Today I'm trying to sort out my luggage for sailing, but tomorrow hopefully I'll get a chance for a last bit of sightseeing before leaving NZ. If it's nice, I'm planning to visit Rangitoto. If it's not, I might go to the Antarctic centre or maybe the museum again.

Currently uploading photos after finding a cheap internet cafe with an actual fast connection. Woohoo.

Blue Mountains

So my Good Friday was spent "bush walking" (hah!) in the Blue Mountains. I did walk, and it was nice, but it wasn't what I'd call bush walking with the road pretty handy most of the time! I've been spoiled in NZ's isolation I think.

To start off with it was pretty quiet, apart from two groups of Japanese tourists shouting (really, shouting, quite unnecessarily). However as the day went on and I walked towards the must-see sights it got busier and busier. Hordes of Asian tourists - Chinese and Japanese as well as Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi - many dressed entirely inappropriately for a walk on anything except a high street. I saw dresses, handbags, and every sort of footwear including flip flops, ballet shoes, suede boots - but very few decent trainers or walking boots. The Europeans and Aussies were marginally better-equipped. I think the source of the problem was two-fold; one, the visitor's centre at Echo Point where there's a nice lookout, and two, "Scenicworld". Scenicworld (who named it, they need shooting?) has a cable car, a funicular railway, and a sort of horizontal cable car, and attracts loads of people. At the bottom of the cable car and the railway there's a boardwalk around what used to be the Katoomba coal mine, which was interesting, but, again busy.

So I walked most of the day, to see some waterfalls and the Three Sisters (rock formations) and down the Giant Staircase (878 steps, I wasn't walking up it!). Got the funicular railway up to the top of the cliff. It's the world's steepest and I thought it might be fun, which it was, though I didn't feel the need to scream as some other passengers did. Took a couple of pictures of other people for them and got generally irritated at having to avoid people taking pictures of themselves/girlfriends/boyfriends/friends/family in front of perfectly good views. The most random shot of the day was that of a Chinese lady who had asked me and an Aussie couple (who'd just climbed up a long flight of steps and were knackered) for help. She wanted a picture of herself and the Aussies in front of a sign. Nothing special about the sign ... I duly obliged, though I was as puzzled as the Aussies!

It was actually a pretty nice day, but would have been nicer with fewer people around.

Uploading to Flickr is ridiculously slow. I'm persevering, but I think it's unlikely I'll get anything from Brisbane or here up before I get back to Auckland.

Last state-hopping complete

Well, I'm now in the Blue Mountains in the small town of Katoomba - staying at a really rather nice YHA, which is large but extremely clean and comfortable, and has wireless. Yay. I am uploading some photos to Flickr but it's taking a long time - dunno why, but I'll get as many online as I can. Sitting on the sofa is about all I should be doing right now anyway as I managed to bash my head standing up too fast earlier on; whacked it on the bunk above mine. Bit of a headache, but I don't feel sick or anything!

Katoomba seems to be a nice little place. There are some walks to do, so that's tomorrow sorted, and I might go to the cinema too because they have a big one (and an Olympic-sized pool according to my map, which just reminds you you're in Oz - no town this small in the UK would have a 50m pool. Most wouldn't have any pool.) It's a tad hippyish, with several organic/wholefood cafés - had a lovely salad for lunch - and a crystal shop and that sort of thing. But not in a bad way.

New South Wales is, anyway, my last Aussie state before going back to NZ. It has been a bit of a whirlwind highlights tour, but it's been fun.

Better day in Brisbane

Another quickish update from Brisbane, after a really lovely day. Possibly my miserable mood was to do with the fact I'm a bit toured-out, after so many organised days in a row. I do like my independence, and today I did just what I wanted and it was great.

The run I sort of planned last night didn't happen, but I just about walked the same distance I'd thought of running with stops en route for culture and photographs. Went to the contemporary art gallery, which had a big exhibition of contemporary Chinese art that was really good - thought-provoking and visually interesting. Their contemporary indigenous section wasn't half bad either. Skipped the main art gallery, but wandered around the Queensland Museum (like the contemporary gallery, free entry). Then on to Brisbane's South Bank, a blatant rip-off of London complete with a big wheel, though there's a beach/lagoon thing instead of a Tate Modern and a Globe! It was nice though to wander around and watch the ibises - for some reason they're everywhere here, like pigeons in London but a bit more interesting (though smellier). Got the ferry across the river a while later and walked back through the Botanic Gardens and the city's shopping district, both of which were nice.

Just got back from a very pleasant dinner and catch-up with my former colleague from London, again on the South Bank; up at 7am tomorrow to catch my plane to Sydney.

Sailing (a bit) the Whitsundays

A quickish update from Brisbane - no more photos until I find wireless, which may not be until Sydney.

Spent the last couple of days on a yacht cruising the Whitsundays, which was fun enough with a nice bunch of people but didn't quite live up to my (possibly too high?) expectations. I maybe should have booked earlier to ensure the right boat, but didn't. The boat I was on is indeed a fast racing yacht, what I wanted, but the company's just split off from another company and clearly maintenance (or lack of) could be a reason. The yacht was a little run down, and right at the start our skipper couldn't get her in forward gear - kind of essential for leaving the harbour. They fiddled with the engine until they'd mended it, but that meant we were late leaving, and we only motorsailed the first afternoon under a gennaker despite all the other boats around sailing properly. Partly we were late, but also, we discovered when we asked, the mainsail had a tear in it. Actually I don't think the skipper was terribly impressed with a ripped mainsail either, it was his first trip with the company (see how I keep getting first-trip guides?) and he wanted to sail too. Additionally another yacht out at the same time had too many passengers on board for beds, and we had spare beds, so we had to meet up with her at night. That meant a decidedly more "party" atmosphere than I'd been looking for and I think the same went for most of the others on board - though not the four Swedish girls travelling as a group! Not that the socialising wasn't fun, but it meant less sleep than I'd been hoping for. Still a bit short.

Day two started with a trip ashore to see Whitehaven Beach and go for a swim, all togged up in stinger suits to guard against jellyfish. Lovely beach, absolutely white, turquoise sea, the works, so that set us off to a good start. Then we motored to a snorkelling/diving site, which was okay though not up to the standards of the reef further north. Visibility was a bit cloudy, but there was a lot of fish. I did see a fair bit of coral damage however, mostly algae of some description. :( After that we motored to a different mooring, had dinner, and then linked up with the other boat again. The party went on well past my bedtime and was noisy past the time I was trying to get to sleep. Grrr.

Today we started out with a morning snorkel - a quick one, as pretty shortly after getting in we started seeing jellyfish. We all made a fairly sharp exit from the water, despite the stinger suits! Then, thank heavens, we set both sails (the skipper had, I think, realised there were grumpy passengers on board) and had a good sail back to Airlie Beach. Wasn't long enough though and there wasn't a huge amount of audience participation. I helped a bit with the main halyard and that was it. However, a nice end to the trip.

Back in Airlie, a quick swim and a shower helped to freshen up. I'd planned to catch the local bus to the airport but on arrival at the bus stop realised I'd misjudged that one. Hadn't booked a shuttle. Had to get a taxi. Some $78 later, regretted the taxi and my uncharacteristic mismanagement. It's not like I'm skint yet, but the fact remains I didn't want to spend that on a taxi fare! Add to tiredness and by the time I finally got to the backpackers tonight I was thoroughly miserable. However, I decided trying to save a few more dollars would be silly while being miserable, and discovered a really excellent pizza, a glass of red wine and an icecream (lots of favourite food) have cheered me up a lot.

Tomorrow I plan to try and go for a morning run to get some decent exercise, and then I'm just going to wander around Brisbane for the day. I've contemplated going to Australia Zoo but then I wouldn't see anything of the city, and it's a long way and expensive. So I'm not going to bother. In the evening I'm meeting a former colleague for dinner, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Off sailing

I'm in Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, off sailing shortly for two nights. Airlie Beach, frankly, isn't really my type of place and the bar was right below my dorm room last night - though I did manage to get to sleep despite the music blaring out. (I put earplugs in and they fell out during the night! I knew there was a reason I don't like earplugs.)

Weather's a tad variable now, but there is some wind which is what's important when sailing. Still extremely warm.

Uluru, etc.

Day 1

I was picked up for the Uluṟu tour bright and early and we were on the road after formalities soon after. We were a mixed bunch of one Brit (me), an Irishman, a Chinese couple, six Germans and three Austrians – so German was the majority language, though English the lingua franca. Our guide, Chris, turned out to be a Kiwi from the Hawke's Bay on his first trip as a guide (he'd obviously been on the tour himself a few times while training). He did a good job too, telling us about the landscape and the plants and so on as we drove away from Alice. We stopped at a camel farm first; I don't think any of our group did one of the short $5 rides but we stretched our legs and looked at camels, an emu and a couple of kangaroos in an enclosure for a bit. Central Australia is full of feral camels, over 500,000 of them at least and all descended from the camels brought out by the early European settlers and explorers. We spotted a few on the tour, by the side of the road and once a couple crossed in front of us.

Shortly after the camel farm we turned off the main highway on to the Ernest Giles road, 100km of unsealed bumpiness. We passed lots of “rivers” - being dry riverbeds – and collected firewood for the night's campfire. Chris showed us how to look for witchety grubs under acacia bushes. A small snake appeared and slithered away (I didn't see it) and he had better luck with the second bush, finding a hollow root where a grub had been though there was no grub. Apparently they're easier to find after rain.

Lunch was had at King's Creek Station. Like many of the cattle stations in central Australia, it doubles as a campsite, shop and petrol station – they've all been supplementing their income from tourism for about 60 years. It was in the 1960s that some farmers alerted a bloke called Jack Cotterill to the existence of King's Canyon, or Watarrka as the Aborigines call it, and tourists started heading out there. The canyon was our afternoon's walk, about 5.5km round the rim. It's red rock, in various weird shapes but predominantly looking like beehives (the old-fashioned sort, or resembling the NZ parliament building). We were there late enough that the light on the rock was really beautiful, particularly at the end of the walk when the sun was setting.

That meant it was dark by the time we got back to King's Creek. The campsite was a couple of kilometres down the road, and we discovered on arrival that one of the connectors providing power to the shelter had fallen off. Chris set about trying to fix it while the rest of us unloaded food from the back of the van.

Chris had been fiddling with the wires for about five minutes, trampling the sand by the truck while a couple of people provided torchlight and the rest of us looked on. I didn't see it happen, but suddenly Chris was calling for water and pouring it on his leg – a small snake had appeared from nowhere and had bitten him just above his sock. He wasn't sure if he'd been properly bitten or not and was initially going to carry on with getting the camp ready while he waited to find out if his leg was getting sore. (Cue “what!” from yours truly, who had visions of him collapsing in front of our eyes.) Luckily he saw sense and decided to get us all back to the station. He got his leg bandaged – by a medical student, though he didn't realise it at the time – and enlisted the Irishman's help to drive the van back. En route he spotted a quad bike from the station and called the guy over; he radioed ahead so when we arrived some of the station hands were out with their torches and help. They'd called the local nurse, who was based some 40km away, and they held Chris's hand and looked after him until she arrived.

Once she'd got there a couple of the station hands and three of us went back to get the food we'd unloaded, scanning the sand intently with very large torches for snakes. Because we didn't have the camp set up, and we hadn't eaten, the station put us up in little canvas cabins and let us use a kitchen and barbeque. We ate burgers and sausages at 10pm before collapsing into bed, exhausted after a slightly more dramatic day than planned.

Day 2

By the time we got up for breakfast at 6.30am a rescue team had arrived – Brad and Tony, who had driven overnight from Alice and had got to the station at 2.30am. But they were both up before us. Brad was there to mend the broken power and drive a ute back to Alice, while Tony was our replacement guide. We'd swapped new boy Chris for an old timer; Tony being your typical Aussie bush bloke with a long long beard. He was less talkative on the loudspeaker in the bus, but knew his stuff on our walks and was also very good at avoiding crowds. All about timing, he said.

We drove from King's Creek to Yulara, or Ayers Rock Resort, arriving by lunchtime. Yulara – it means “howling” in the local language – was purpose-built in the 1980s to control tourists, replacing a different settlement on the other side of Uluṟu. That place is now an Aboriginal community and is closed off, you need a permit to visit. Yulara has several hotels, a campsite, and, though we didn't see it, a shopping centre. In the middle of the desert. The organised tours have a separate campsite and our particular spot was away from the crowds, thank heavens. It's just starting to get busy right now, so it wasn't too bad generally but the campsite was full.

After lunch we headed to the Uluṟu cultural centre, which explains the significance of the site to the Anaṉgu people as well as the various “stories” associated with the rock. There are two major ones – one about a big battle between two snakes, and one about an interrupted ceremony. The centre also explained the history of the national park, which these days is run as a jointly managed effort between the Anaṉgu and the Australian government. They have rangers of both Aboriginal and Australian origin, and try to strike a balance between tourism and preserving the lifestyle and traditions of the local people. It seems they're doing a reasonable job and the centre was interesting.

Then we went out into the heat to see the rock itself. It's really an extraordinary thing, this huge lump of sandstone sticking out of the desert. The actual rock is really grey but it's covered in layers of red dust. It's not regular in any sense, with lots of bits sticking out and caves and so on. There's rock art, a major waterhole, and various places you can't take photos of because they are sacred to the Anaṉgu. The base walk is 9.4km but it was way too hot to do it all, so we did bits of it and drove around most of the rest. The climb was closed due to the heat – they shut it if the temperature is forecast above 36ºC. I wouldn't have climbed anyway; partly because they ask you not to, and partly because frankly it looks terrifying and horrible.

We were done with our walking by about 5.30pm. Tony took us to the sunset viewing point and showed us a good spot, again away from the hordes of coach passengers who settle down at tables with linen next to the coach park. We opened our fizzy wine, made Buck's Fizz and watched the rock change colour until the sun went down. It was rather lovely.

Getting back into the bus Tony said to me, “watch where you're sitting, there's a kangaroo tail in there”. Lo and behold there was indeed, a frozen tail in a plastic bag which he'd bought to cook. Not the nicest thing to see.

Back at the campsite Tony got the fire going and as a group we prepared a massive feast to cook on it – we had all the food we didn't eat the previous night as well! There was a big pot of vegetables, cooked slowly with spices; some pasta with spinach and feta; chicken; and kangaroo mince. And some garlic bread which I cooked in some embers. It was all fantastic, even the kangaroo which tasted somewhat like venison. Felt a bit stuffed afterwards and was happy to fall into my swag for the night. A swag is a sort of leather sleeping bag affair. There's a mattress and pillow inside, and you add your sleeping bag and zip yourself up so only your face is exposed to the night air. It's remarkably comfy and despite the snake incident of the previous night I wasn't at all worried. I think I'd been reassured by Tony's insistence that Chris's bite was absolutely extraordinary (and by now we knew he was safe and had come to no harm) as well as the fact it's a well-used campsite and they wouldn't let you do it if it wasn't safe. Some of the others felt a bit nervous though I think. It was nice lying there looking at the stars, with the fire gently burning behind me, and I slept pretty well through the night.

Day 3

Up even earlier on this day in order to have breakfast and pack up before sunrise. We went to a viewing point near Kata Tjuta, otherwise known as the Olgas, where you can see both Uluṟu and Kata Tjuta. Uluṟu gets the sun behind it, so is silhouetted against the sky, while Kata Tjuta gets the morning sun on red rocks. It was fairly busy but not uncomfortably so.

As soon as the sun was up Tony got us into the bus again so we could get the walk around Kata Tjuta done before it got too hot. Again they close it at 11am if it's forecast to be warm. We were on the track before 8am. The path's called the Valley of the Winds walk and near the beginning it was extraordinarily windy, but later on it was much more sheltered. Kata Tjuta is a collection of large dome-shaped rocks, essentially; but that doesn't quite do it justice.

Tony showed us how the various rocks in the area were formed, using pebbles to illustrate. Basically there was a big flood once upon a time which washed debris into a pile, creating the composite stone of Kata Tjuta. The sandstone of Uluṟu was left on its own, as was the nearby mesa of Mount Conner (which we'd seen on the road the previous day).

On the walk we saw a couple of dingoes up ahead, and a short while after two kangaroos in the bush. I was delighted when one of them bounced away, though my pictures are dreadful. I really wanted to see a wild kangaroo bouncing.

The walk takes you up to a sort of saddle, a divider between two gorges in the formations. Here all Tony's careful crowd-avoidance went to pot because we got up there at the same time as a horde of American teenagers arrived from the opposite direction. There seemed to be hundreds of them. Not fun. We left before they did, because they were coming back the same way they'd come and we wanted to get ahead.

We had lunch at the campsite again and then hit the long road back to Alice, stopping a few times on the way for drinks, stretching, and kangaroo tail for those that wanted it. I really didn't, it looked disgusting as it's all fat and sinew. No proper meat on it.

The last stop was at “Jim's Place”. Jim Cotterill is the son of Jack (see day 1) and he runs a roadhouse about 90km from Alice Springs. He's a down-to-earth Aussie in his 60s and he owns a singing dingo. Dinky the dingo and Jim do a little show for those who are interested. Basically Dinky was a victim of dingo poisoning – all his family was killed but Dinky was rescued, about eight years ago. He grew up in Jim's household as a dog, basically, and got used to the Cotterill daughters playing the piano. Soon they discovered Dinky would “sing” along to the music and learnt to hit the keys with his paws. Of course word spread and now Dinky's a worldwide celebrity with a question in the Aussie version of Trivial Pursuit. We had a performance – a bloke from another tour group played the piano. Dinky began to whine and then got up on to the keyboard and began to howl. It was totally out of tune and time with the music and we all found it completely hilarious. Jim said dingoes are very communicative, and basically Dinky is using music as a way of communicating with the family. There's a few videos on YouTube.

We got back to Alice about 6.30, time to shower and do laundry before a last meal as a group. Everyone was very nice and despite the various language barriers we got on well – I found myself helping the Chinese couple with rental car booking queries at the airport the next day because they were on the same flight as me. But I was exhausted after all the early starts, and was happy to collapse into bed!

Great Barrier

Another quick entry - wireless is down at my otherwise lovely hostel in Cairns, so I can't upload the long entry I did about Uluru (etc). Yesterday morning I went to Alice Springs' telegraph station, which was very interesting and really worthwhile and I survived the walk! Today I went snorkelling on the Great Barrier, and managed to find a small operator. They were really good, we did three dives and saw loads of different coral and fish and best of all a green turtle that swam around us for ages. Lots of fun. Tomorrow off to Cape Tribulation, a rainforest area further north.

Back from the Outback

Back from my trip to Uluru (etc). It was fun. It was also baking hot and I am heartily sick of flies - they're everywhere! Everything went smoothly apart from the not-so-minor matter of our guide getting bitten by a snake on the first night while trying to connect power in the campsite. Luckily the snake only caught the top of his sock and no venom got into the bloodstream, but he still had to go to hospital back in Alice before they'd confirmed that. The company was brilliant and sent a relief guide out to us, so we didn't miss out on anything except one night's sleeping under the stars; the station the campsite was on put us up in little cabins for the night because it was getting so late.

Anyway, more when I have wireless, when I'll also upload some of the very many pictures I took!

Too hot!

In Alice Springs. It's too hot. Way too hot. I'm melting. I tried to go for a walk to the old telegraph station and gave up after ten minutes - now I'm planning to get up early-ish when I'm back here after my Uluru trip and go first thing in the morning, when it might actually be cool enough, or I might have acclimatised a bit. There are also quite a lot of annoying flies. However my hostel has a (small) pool and I think I'll have a dip after finishing emailing and so on.

Mmm, wine

Slightly sozzled (only slightly) after a day's wine tasting in the McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills. A small tour group, which was nice, and a mixture of ages and nationalities, also nice. We did five wineries, morning tea, olive oil tasting and lunch. The McLaren Vale's not too far outside Adelaide; it has around 85 wineries apparently but most of them are boutique, small family-owned businesses rather than the multi-national conglomerates.

First stop after morning tea was the Fox Creek winery where we had a tour of their very modern sheds before tasting several whites and I think seven reds, including a fizzy Shiraz which was yummy. After that, Woodstock Wines (named after the Oxfordshire village) – I particularly liked their expensive $60 Shiraz and their dessert wines, but the grenache rosé was pretty good too. We had lunch at Woodstock, one of those antipasto platter affairs.

The next two wineries after lunch – Hugo Wines in McLaren Vale and Petalumba in the Adelaide Hills – made me worry I'd drunk too much because they weren't as good. Not terrible, just not quite as good as the first two. Luckily winery number five was superb. Arranmore Wines is a tiny little operation producing 1000 cases a year and run by one man, who knew his stuff and made excellent wines. Up there it's colder than down in the vale, so the wines reminded me far more of the stuff I've been drinking in NZ – especially as he makes a rather nice pinot noir. A good last stop actually.

Off up to Alice Springs tomorrow. I hear it's hot.

Port Adelaide

Port Adelaide was small, but I enjoyed my trip out there anyway. The maritime museum was excellent, especially the section on immigrants to Australia – I particularly liked the reconstruction of steerage cabins through the ages and the ketch they have in the main lobby. Not a large museum, but a nice one. The rest of the town is very, very sleepy with old port buildings dotted about; the port itself is somewhat industrial and ugly. There's a community of bottlenose dolphins living in the estuary but I didn't see any. Anyway I had a nice wander.

Got back to the hotel early enough to make a trip to the aquatic centre worthwhile. I do love the fact that in Australia you can guarantee a 50m pool – Adelaide's was busy with the local swim squad but there were three public lanes and they weren't too busy. (The centre also had two leisure pools and a diving pool.) A bonus was the white parrots or cockatoos I saw in the surrounding park en route and on the way back from swimming. You wouldn't find those in the UK, or indeed NZ!

Adelaide

The Overlander, Tuesday 24 March

On the train on the way to Adelaide. Miles and miles of very flat, very brown Aussie scenery rolling by (I'd say rushing, but it'd be wrong as this train doesn't rush, it rolls). There's still a good couple of hours left in the journey and then I somehow have to find tonight's motel ....

Melbourne was fun, good to see friends and relax a bit. Yesterday I spent the morning wandering around the shops with Bea (on holiday from the UK). Nice to see proper shops, it's one thing Wellington doesn't have in abundance. Bought a new wide-angle lens as mine has died; it will probably be fixable but I'm not staying anywhere long enough to get it fixed and I found a decent deal on a Sigma 10-20mm digital lens. Bea and I met up with Helen for a yum cha lunch, which was highly enjoyable. I like being a lady what lunches. :) After that we split up as Bea had already been to the city museum and I wanted to go. I got to play with the new lens outside and inside the museum, which is beautiful from an architectural point of view and interesting from a cultural point of view. I didn't bother with the generic science/natural history galleries because you do get those everywhere and went straight to the Melbourne gallery, telling the city's story. I followed that with the Te Pasifika gallery (small, with a variety of canoes and other Pasifika artefacts including a kiwi-feather cloak from NZ) and the Aborigine gallery. That raised the question of whether it's right for museums in other countries to hold indigenous artefacts in their collections. The Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders don't think it is – I'm of two minds. Human remains should, I reckon, remain in their home countries. Bits of rock and objects given by indigenous peoples to explorers and collectors is a slightly different matter; I understand the point of view that those things belong to the tangata whenua (to use the Maori term for people of the land) but if every nation on earth took that view we'd be a very closeted species, unaware and unappreciative of the greater world on our doorstep. Especially because relatively speaking not that many people get a chance to travel outside their borders.

Finished the museum with the forest gallery, which was a rather good sort of giant aviary full of trees and tree ferns and other plants, waterways, birds and some animals and so on. I managed to arrive just when the alpine copperhead snake was being fed its weekly dead mouse – a very scrawny little white creature – so I watched for a while. Still don't like snakes. I preferred the pretty little birds twittering about among the trees.

Next stop, just before it closed, was Cook's Cottage. Some time ago some Melburnians decided to buy the old stone cottage once lived in by Captain Cook's parents, dismantle it, and ship it from Great Ayton in Yorkshire all the way to Oz. As you do. It now stands incongruously amid the palm trees in a Melbourne park, complete with an English-style cottage garden and very non-English birds flitting about. In the interests of being a complete Cook geek I had to go inside for a quick look.

The sun was beginning to set, turning the churches and modern architecture a lovely golden, and I sat in Federation Square for a while people-watching and waiting for friends. Helen took us rowing that evening, a short outing in a coxed four on the Yarra which was fun. Always good to get out in a boat.

Up early this morning to catch the train, and I've generally relaxed all day. Comfortable seats, alternating between reading, scenery watching, snoozing and eating. Could be worse ...

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Adelaide, Wednesday 25 March

Back from a day exploring Adelaide; my feet hurt!

Caught a taxi to my hotel from the train station last night – it was raining and I really had no idea where I was! Only the taxi driver appeared to have no idea either and had to consult a map before putting the hotel address into his GPS thing. Sometimes I miss London cabbies.

I'm staying in North Adelaide, which is a nice neighbourhood with lots of really pretty Victorian houses and a main street with plenty of restaurants and so on. However it's also within walking distance of the city proper, and that's where I headed this morning. Booked a wine tour in the McLaren Vale for Friday before hitting the Central Market, a large covered market with lots of fruit, veg, meat, cheese and bakery stalls. I didn't need to buy anything but had a lovely wander around (and a really good coffee).

Then I went to a contemporary arts gallery called the JamFactory – they have a glass studio attached – some lovely pieces of glassware, jewellery and a great exhibition of quirky creatures made out of glass. I carried on being cultural at the South Australian Museum, mainly for the Aboriginal cultural gallery; lots of art and other objects from across Australia. The art gallery next door was good too, though had a baffling range of art from across the world. I actually liked the contemporary Aborigine art best. So I went on to the national Aboriginal cultural centre, Tandanya, where they were changing exhibits so there wasn't much to see. Aboriginal art is awfully expensive.

Finished the day with a wander through the Botanic Gardens, especially the rose garden. I do love roses and they had lots of different ones, including some test roses. A funny little bloke driving round on a quad bike told me I ought to be taking pictures of the test flowers because they might get chucked out if they're not successful. He was actually the third random old Aussie bloke who's struck up a conversation with me in the past few days. In Melbourne on Monday after I'd said bye to Bea one old guy told me we looked very relaxed and was I on holiday; and then earlier today outside the state library another man suggested that I go round the back to look at the old police buildings (I did, it was a good suggestion).

I'm planning to catch the train tomorrow morning to Port Adelaide and go to the maritime museum, and then if I'm back in town early I might check out the aquatic centre and have a swim.

In Melbourne

I've left NZ for a few weeks and am now in Melbourne on the start of my Australian travels. Staying with a friend from rowing at home, who's been out here for a while, and there are a couple of other mutual friends here too so it's been good to catch up. In a bit of a spur-of-the-moment thing we did a team triathlon this morning - I did the 750m swim, which was a bit scary because of the chaos at the start. However I managed to overtake quite a few people and did a good time, and as a team we think we were the first or second quickest female team. Annoyingly they decided to merge the male and female teams as all male on the results so it's hard to tell for sure.

Melbourne still tomorrow, before heading to Adelaide by train on Tuesday morning.

Sydney for Anzac Day

Friday was Anzac Day over here - poppies in April, which I can't get used to because poppies are for November. It's a big thing, with dawn services and themed TV and memorials, in commemoration of the day in 1915 when thousands of Aussie and Kiwi soldiers landed at Gallipoli in Turkey, many of them losing their lives. It's a public holiday both here and in Australia, so I took the opportunity to hop across the Tasman to visit friends in Sydney. It was a fun weekend - we did the traditional Aussie barcrawl in the suburb of Balmain on Friday afternoon, along with the rest of Sydney. Everywhere was packed! And they were all playing a traditional gambling game which is only allowed to be played on Anzac Day, called Two Up, which involves two old pennies being tossed. You bet with your mates on what way they'll land. It's that simple - and it seemed like total chaos. We didn't really understand what was going on and contented ourselves with drinking beer and watching in bemusement.

The next day I went dragon boating with one of my friends, who's recently taken it up. She assured me the sessions weren't long - yeah, right! We were on the water for a good 90 minutes and it was really difficult. Using lots of muscles I don't normally use, plus it's been a while since I did any decent exercise owing to this cold (which stripped away my voice to a croak for the entire weekend). I enjoyed it, though, and it was a glorious day to be out on the water.

After brunch we headed to the Australian National Maritime Museum because I wanted to see Endeavour as a museum ship. She was undergoing some maintenance - apparently they'd had the mizzen mast out to check for rot, and she was missing her forecourse yard - but was looking lovely nevertheless, all decked out 18th-century style. The guides were good too, and my friend seemed to enjoy herself. :) Afterwards we wandered around the museum a bit, particularly enjoying the rowing section. As we came out the sun was just setting and everything was coloured a beautiful pink (see pictures below).

We had dinner that evening in a posh Chinese restaurant near Circular Quay, with views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Two of us had wanted steak but the other of us is veggie, so we picked the restaurant with the best veggie options - as she pointed out, half of them weren't actually veggie, for example the noodle soup with a pork stock base. Lucky she checked!

On Sunday morning we started off with a swim in a nice, open-air, 50m saltwater pool. Annoyingly I hadn't brought swimming things with me, so I borrowed a costume and hat from my friend. She didn't have spare goggles though, and after half an hour my eyes had gone rather bloodshot and my vision was cloudy. Really unpleasant, but it cleared up eventually (phew).

We met up with a friend of mine from school who I hadn't seen for ten years but is currently working in Sydney - hurrah for the wonders of modern technology and social networking - for brunch, before a wander around the Covent Garden-esque Rocks district which has a Sunday market full of jewellery and art and so on. Then to the Opera House, to take plenty of pictures, although we missed the tour because there wasn't quite time.

All in all, an excellent weekend.

Pictures:

Cook's cabin:



Outside the Maritime Museum - HMS Vampire:



Darling Harbour at sunset:







Night views:





Many pics of the Opera House:

















And a ferry, to finish off with!

Voyaging aboard the "Endeavour"

My holidays are over - boo - back in Wellington and still a bit sleepy after a late night flight back from Sydney on Sunday.

Torunn and I did make it to Milford Sound after all; we set out early the day after my last post, and the road opened that morning. So we kept driving all the way there, and managed to get on a cruise on one of the smallest boats on the Sound. The light was gorgeous and although some of the waterfalls had dried up after a couple of days without rain, it was well worth doing. We spent our last day together in Queenstown, getting the gondola to see views and wandering by the lake.

From Queenstown I flew to Sydney, where my rowing friend Jess kindly put me up for the night and I played tourist on the ferry to her flat - the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were all lit up and lovely. After a good catch-up, early the next morning I caught a plane to Newcastle. I was fascinated to discover that just like its English namesake, Newcastle is heavily dependent on coal. There were loads of gigantic coal ships at anchor in the bay, awaiting their turn to come in and load up with coal. It was, therefore, a rather suitable place to join the Endeavour as the original ship was once a collier brig from Whitby.

Endeavour is not an elegant vessel; she's too rounded for that. But she is beautiful, a faithful reproduction of the original, with very little metal around except in the "20th century" deck where the galley, mess, showers and heads, and the engine room are kept. That's the lowest deck on board, tucked away so when she's in museum mode all the public sees is the 18th century deck above. The wood does creak a bit, and she takes on a few inches of water in the bilges, but she's a lovely, lovely ship. And she has a lovely permanent crew, all friendly, helpful, encouraging and professional. We had a great voyage crew too - good mix of ages and backgrounds, and not too many snorers, which is crucial when you have 36 people all sleeping together in hammocks. Not much space between hammocks either!

The first day was spent training; a tour of the ship, safety briefings, helm orders, and "up and over" the fighting-top. Curiously Endeavour, like Spirit of New Zealand has safety lines running up the shrouds where the European ships I've sailed on don't. Personally I find it extremely frustrating to have to keep on unclipping and clipping the lanyards of the harness while climbing up - by the end of the voyage we, like the professional crew, had dispensed with those safety lines for the lower shrouds.

We set sail at 4pm, firing a couple of cannon off to thank the citizens of Newcastle for their hospitality, and motored out east until we had enough wind to set sail. The engines were off by 8.30pm and stayed off the rest of the voyage, apart from a short burst anchoring on Friday evening, coming off anchor on Sunday morning, and motoring the last short bit into Sydney. We never went very fast - even under Cook, Endeavour rarely manages more than about 10 knots in a strong wind. But we sailed, lots. On Thursday we had most of the sails set for a good long period and they sent the rescue boat out to take pictures of her, including film for an Aussie travel show called the Great Outdoors. The show had a producer, presenter, cameraman and soundman on board for a section in a January edition, so everything we did was filmed.

Unfortunately for some, she rolled a bit even when we were sailing. Quite a few sea-sickness victims. I was fine as usual (I know how lucky I am). Sail was taken in during the afternoon on Thursday and when we came on watch at 8pm rain was definitely on the horizon, with absolutely spectacular lightning to be seen in all directions. We all got kitted out in wet-weather gear and waited. All of a sudden the squall came on, wind up to Force 8 and we still had topsails up. So together with the permanent crew we wrestled them down - hauling on ropes we couldn't see as the wind howled and the rain poured down. Occasionally there was a bright flash of lightning, silhouetting the permanent crew as they climbed the shrouds to furl the sails. The wind died pretty quickly and by the end of the watch we wore ship (turning her) in winds that barely moved her.

More wind was forecast on Friday, so we kept most of the sails in and headed for land. The captain wanted to anchor in Broken Bay, north of Sydney, and we took the sails in and dropped the anchor in the early evening. A lovely little spot. After dinner he showed us some helicopter footage taken for a documentary on Cook, the Endeavour under full sail with a massive 18th-century Red Ensign flying from the stern and the crew in period dress. Gorgeous stuff, and very special to see it aboard the ship.

Our day ashore started late with a brunch (yum - all the food on board was really great thanks to Abi the cook and her mate Mischa) before we got ferried over to a nearby beach in the rescue boat. I was very excited to see goanas on the beach. Once everyone was on land Wally the engineer took us all for a walk in the bush - no tracks! - up to the ridgeline to look down on the bay and the ship. We were going to walk to a waterfall on a beach on the other side, but time and the track ran out. The bush was moderately thick, I got a splinter in a finger which still hasn't come out, and we had to dodge big red bull ants which are apparently horrid if they bite. I don't know how anyone survives in Oz!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the beach. We went swimming and a couple of the crew rescued a Japanese couple from a goana intent on eating their picnic. The poor guy was just about to propose to his girlfriend too.

Back on board, we used up all the water storage spac (oops), and prepared for the evening's entertainment. Dinner was on the 18th-century deck, served by the crew in period sailors' clothes, with electric lanterns providing ambience. The captain served out our "wages", a spoonful of rum each! After dinner there was a "sods' opera", with contributions of songs, poems and skits from both voyage and professional crew. I haven't laughed so hard for ages - the talent was impressive and we had an good hours' entertainment.

On the last day we weighed anchor early and motored out of the bay, firing a couple of cannon as we went. We had sails set later that morning and we sailed in through Sydney heads in the company of hundreds of little yachts and various ugly speedboats. We had to take in sail once heading towards the bridge, which meant I got a great view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from the main topsail yard. We fired our last cannon right under the bridge, causing a boom which echoed off the steelwork. And then we were into the museum wharf and tied up. The voyage ended with a beautiful rendition of "Leave her, Johnny, leave her" by first mate Penny and topman Ally. I'd have loved to have stayed for a celebratory drink with the crew, but had a plane to catch.

And that was that. Pictures going up on Flickr right now.